Love Letters of a Violinist and Other Poems Part 16

VII.

Yea, this is so. My clerks have set it down, And birds have blabbed it to the winds of heaven.

The flowers have guessed it, and, in bower and town, Lovers have sung the songs that I have made.

Give me your lives, O mortals, and, for leaven, Ye shall receive the fires that cannot fade.

VIII.

O men! O maidens! O ye listless ones!

Ye who desert my temples in the East, Ye who reject the rays of summer suns, And cling to shadows in the wilderness; Why are ye sad? Why frown ye at the feast, Ye who have eyes to see and lips to press?

IX.

Why, for a wisdom that ye will not prove, A joy that crushes and a love that stings, A freak, a frenzy in a fated groove, A thing of nothing born of less than nought-- Why in your hearts do ye desire these things, Ye who abhor the joys that ye have sought?

X.

See, see! I weep, but I can jest at times; Yea, I can dance and toss my tears away.

The sighs I breathe are fragrant as the rhymes Of men and maids whose hearts are overthrown.

I am the G.o.d for whom all maidens pray, But none shall have me for herself alone.

XI.

No; I have love enough, here where I stand, To marry fifty maids in their degree; Aye, fifty times five thousand in a band, And every bride the proxy of a score.

Want ye a mate for millions? I am he.

Glory is mine, and glee-time evermore.

XII.

O men! O masters! O ye kings of grief!

Ye who control the world but not the grave, What have ye done to make delight so brief, Ye who have spurn'd the minstrel and the lyre?

I will not say: "Be patient." Ye are brave; And ye shall guess the pangs of my desire.

XIII.

There shall be traitors in the court of love, And tears and torture and the bliss of pain.

The maids of men shall seek the G.o.ds above, And drink the nectar of the golden lake.

Blessed are they for whom the G.o.ds are fain; They shall be glad for love's and pity's sake.

XIV.

They shall be taught the songs the syrens know, The wave's lament, the west wind's psalmistry, The secrets of the south and of the snow, The wherewithal of day, and death, and night.

O men! O maidens! pray no prayer for me, But sing to me the songs of my delight.

XV.

Aye, sing to me the songs I love to hear, And let the sound thereof ascend to heaven.

And let the singers, with a voice of cheer, Announce my name to all the ends of earth; And let my servants, seventy times and seven, Re-shout the raptures of my Samian mirth!

XVI.

Let joy prevail, and Frenzy, like a flame, Seize all the souls of men for sake of me.

For I will have Contention put to shame, And all the hearts of all things comforted.

There are no laws but mine on land and sea, And men shall crown me when their kings are dead.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE WAKING OF THE LARK.

I.

O bonnie bird, that in the brake, exultant, dost prepare thee-- As poets do whose thoughts are true, for wings that will upbear thee-- Oh! tell me, tell me, bonnie bird, Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred?

Or canst thou sing of naught but Spring among the golden meadows?

II.

Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow, And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow; But thou art not a prophet, thou, If naught but joy can touch thee now; If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish.

III.

Oh! I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, tho' poor and slighted, The songs we love are those we hear when love is unrequited.

But thou art still the slave of dawn, And canst not sing till night be gone, Till o'er the pathway of the fawn the sunbeams s.h.i.+ne and quiver.

IV.

Thou art the minion of the sun that rises in his splendour, And canst not spare for Dian fair the songs that should attend her.

The moon, so sad and silver-pale, Is mistress of the nightingale; And thou wilt sing on hill and dale no ditties in the darkness.

V.

For Queen and King thou wilt not spare one note of thine outpouring; Thou art as free as breezes be on Nature's velvet flooring.

The daisy, with its hood undone, The gra.s.s, the sunlight, and the sun-- These are the joys, thou holy one, that pay thee for thy singing.